​The proclaimed word has its origin in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. It neither originates from truth once perceived nor from personal experience. It is not the reproduction of a specific set of feelings…. The proclaimed word is the incarnate Christ himself… the thing itself. The preached Christ is both the Historical One and the Present One…. The proclaimed word is not a medium of expression for something else, something which lies behind it, but rather is the Christ himself walking through his congregation as the word.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Worldly Preaching, ed. Clyde E. Fant (Nashville and New York: Thomas Nelson, 1975), 125.